Unless you’ve been hiding under a massive social media rock for these last few weeks, chances are you’ll have encountered the Neknominate craze. A sort of dare game, Facebook members film themselves drinking alcoholic “cocktails” (for want of a better word) and then dare two of their poor Facebook friends to do the same within 24 hours … or else. Now, if these alcoholic cocktails were a Piña Colada or a Jesticle, maybe it would be okay. But the more disgusting your concoction, the more “likes” you’re guaranteed to receive. One Neknominate I viewed recently showed a poor girl drinking a mixture of Malibu, champagne, vodka, egg white, Berocca, cocoa powder, mustard, BBQ sauce and flour … and then spectacularly vomiting everywhere.
Obviously, these videos are some of the funniest things in existence (if you haven’t seen the video of the girl doing her Neknominate on a horse in Tesco, YouTube it now!), but you have to wonder whether daring your friends to outdo you on the Internet is really a good idea. You’re given 24 hours to upload your video, but what happens if you don’t? Rejection by all of your friends? Probably not, but I suppose there’s always that one friend guaranteed to take it a little too far. Everyone has that friend who gets too drunk in pre-drinks to leave the house, or ends up drinking to every “never” in “Never Have I Ever” — the friend that either doesn’t know his or her limits or does and chooses to completely ignore them. What happens when he or she gets Neknominated?
Several people so far have died from the Neknominate trend. It’s not fair to blame the game for the deaths of these people — no one made them drink quite that much, but I can’t help but wonder if it encouraged them to take it that little bit further. We’ve all felt the pressure when you’re told to “down it, fresherrrrrr,” or the old “we like to drink with…” song starts up, but luckily we all know that our friends aren’t going to completely disown us if we don’t manage to down our drink in 10 seconds flat. But the Internet isn’t quite so reassuring, and let’s be honest, we all want those Facebook likes that we’ve seen our friends get for their crazy Neknominate videos.
Neknominate is a laugh if it’s done within our limits, but it’s when people take it just too far that it becomes dangerous. So if I get nominated, will I give it a go? Absolutely. But will there be four different types of alcohol in my drink, as well as various kitchen essentials? Absolutely not!